Nohad El Machnouk (or Machnouq, ar, نهاد المشنوق; born 1955) is a
Lebanese politician who was the
Lebanese Minister of Interior and Municipalities and a Member of
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
representing
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
’s second district. He is a member of the “
Future Bloc” coalition and serves on the Human Rights and Foreign Affairs parliamentary committees. He also serves on the ministerial committee charged with responding to the
Syrian refugee crisis.
Early life
Having started his career as a journalist, El Machnouk was hired by Lebanese weekly magazine ''
Annahar'' and wrote extensively on regional issues.
Political career
In 1983, he assumed his first political role as co-founder of ''Al Liqa’ al-Islami'' ("The Islamic Meeting"), a political gathering of prominent politicians and civil society leaders that called for an end to Syrian dominance of Lebanon and a halt to civil conflict.
In 1992, he was appointed senior political advisor to Prime Minister
Rafic Hariri. He served in this position until 1998, when he was forced into exile by the Syrian intelligence apparatus for his efforts to reduce Syrian tutelage of the country. Upon the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005, he resumed his journalistic career as a weekly columnist for Lebanese daily ''
Assafir
''As-Safir'' ( ar, السفير, lit=The Ambassador), was a leading Arabic-language daily newspaper in Lebanon. The headquarters of the daily was in Beirut. It was in circulation from March 1974 until December 2016. The last issue of the paper wa ...
'', before running for parliament in 2009. In 2014, he was named Minister of Interior and Municipalities in
Tammam Salam’s national unity government.
As minister, he devised and implemented a comprehensive security strategy to gradually impose state sovereignty on all the Lebanese territory. This put an end to the rounds of sectarian infighting that had taken place in
North Lebanon
North Lebanon (Arabic: شمال لبنان) is the northern region of Lebanon comprising the North Governorate and Akkar Governorate. On 16 July 2003, the two entities were divided from the same province by former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri which ...
for a decade and helped dismantle the criminal networks that served as support infrastructures for terrorist groups operating in the northeast of the country.
In December 2016, Nohad El Machnouk was appointed
Minister of Interior and Municipalities.
Beirut protests
On 22 August 2015,
protesters took to the streets of Beirut demanding a resolution to the trash crisis, the protests led to a clash with the riot police who fired tear gas and water cannons at the protesters and shot rubber bullets directly at them and real bullets in the air. Hundreds of people were wounded in the events and the public demanded the prosecution of the responsible forces and the resignation of Machnouk.
Machnouk was abroad at the time of the protests. However, upon his return he defended officers involved in controlling the protests and rejected calls for his resignation,
describing the aftermath of the protests as vandalism by rioters who had taken advantage of the chaos.
At the same time, Machnouk was criticized as a video clip was widely shared online and on Lebanese television, that appeared to show him dancing at a bar on the Greek island of Mykonos as the crisis escalated in Beirut.
External links
Official websiteThe Washington InstituteThe Daily Star
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Machnouk, Nohad
Living people
Members of the Parliament of Lebanon
1955 births
Politicians from Beirut
Government ministers of Lebanon
Future Movement politicians